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impact on conservation. I list 20 subjects in which the study of animal behaviour can make a significant contribution to conservation. Behaviour may in itself be worth conserving. I also suggest how behavioural ecologists could become more involved in conservation. 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
Nov 1, 1998 · The exciting research developments in animal behaviour over the last two decades have had a negligible impact on conservation. I list 20 subjects in which the study of animal behaviour can...
The exciting research developments in animal behaviour over the last two decades have had a negligible impact on conservation. I list 20 subjects in which the study of animal behaviour can make a significant contribution to conservation. Behaviour may in itself be worth conserving.
Feb 1, 1998 · Behavior provides a window into the animal's world that, with careful observation and study, can tell us a great deal about what animals do when they are frightened, ill, or in pain, as...
- Introduction
- Behavioral Approaches to The Study of Welfare
- Why Is Behavior Important?
- Designing Housing Environments Based on Behavior
- Summary
“Animals should be housed with a goal of maximizing species-specific behaviors and minimizing stress-induced behaviors” ( NRC 1996, p 22)--a laudable goal, but can it be achieved? The answer is perhaps, but doing so will necessitate addressing some difficult questions. How do we maximize behaviors in an environment that is so different from the one...
Background
The report on intensive farming practices authored by the Brambell committee (1965 ) was probably the first published document to emphasize the importance of behavior in assessing animal welfare. This committee was established by the British government after the public outcry following publication of Ruth Harrison's expos? of what she referred to as “factory farming” methods in Animal Machines (1964). After hearing testimony and reviewing farming practices in Europe, the members of the commit...
Motivation and Welfare
Many factors can motivate the performance of behaviors, and a variety of models have been proposed in an attempt to explain how motivational systems work ( Jensen and Toates 1993 ; Toates 1986 ). One approach to studying motivation has been the attempt to determine the relative importance of internal and external factors in causing particular behaviors (for example, Hughes 1988). Some behaviors are classified as being motivated primarily by factors external to the animal, exemplified by therm...
Abnormal Behaviors
In the laboratory setting, abnormal behaviors are often used as the benchmark of poor housing conditions and the need for environmental enrichment. Behaviors that cause injury to either the initiator (self-mutilation) or the recipient (cannibalism) clearly have a negative effect on the welfare of the individual sustaining the injury. However, no consistent relationship has been demonstrated between noninjurious abnormal behaviors, particularly stereotypies, and other measures of reduced welfa...
It is worth remembering that behavior is what animals do to interact with, respond to, and control their environment. Behavior is generally the animal's “first line of defense” in response to environmental change. As such, careful observations of behavior can provide us with a great deal of information about animals' requirements, preferences and d...
Animal behavior is rarely given a great deal of consideration in the design of housing systems and equipment, even though behaviorally inappropriate design can lead to injury and other welfare problems ( NRAES 1995 ). Taylor (1995 ) evaluated various commercially available sow feeders and found that they differed widely in the ease with which sows ...
Ultimately, the answers to the questions posed in the first paragraph of this article will depend on our perception of our ethical obligations to the animals in our care ( Sandøe and Simonsen 1992 ; Tannenbaum 1991). Nevertheless, an understanding of the range, causes, and functions of the species-typical behaviors of animals will be critical under...
- Joy Mench
- 1998
Feb 1, 2001 · In this review, I summarize a few key ideas about animal cognition developed in a recent book (Shettleworth 1998, Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour) and briefly review some areas in which interdisciplinary research on animal cognition is currently proving especially productive.
Presents an undergraduate textbook on animal behavioral biology from an evolutionary approach which focuses on the following topics: the distinction between different kinds of underlying causes of behavior, how natural selection theory is used to develop hypotheses on the evolutionary causes of behavior, what is meant by a cost–benefit ...
